1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reflective or transflective liquid crystal display device and its manufacturing method. The invention especially relates to a liquid crystal display device having a diffusive reflecting layer providing distribution of diffused reflected light with a specific directivity.
2. Description of the Related Art
Prior to now, there has been a reflective liquid crystal display device provided with a liquid crystal layer for performing optical modulation in accordance with an image to be displayed and a diffusive reflecting layer disposed on the back side opposite to the display face is conventionally available. Such a display device causes light, which has been incident from the front side of the display device and has passed through the liquid crystal layer, to be diffusively reflected by the diffusive reflecting layer and returned to the display face side through the liquid crystal layer again, whereby image displaying is performed using the light modulated by the liquid crystal layer.
The diffusive reflecting layer used here is intended to prevent the external light incident from the display face side of the display device from regularly reflecting and mirror-reflecting the image on the external light side and allow the displayed image to be fully visually recognized even if the user changes a viewing angle to some extent.
As a reflective liquid crystal display device used for a portable information terminal or the like, there is known a kid of device arranged to intentionally differentiate a diffused reflected light distribution in the case where the screen is viewed from the front at different angles in the vertical direction from a diffused reflected light distribution in the case where the screen is viewed from the front at different angles in the horizontal direction in an attempt to make efficient use of light adapted to the mode of use in the portable information terminal or the like (see Patent Document 1, for instance).
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 177106/98 (paragraph number 0128 of the 11th page to paragraph number 0130 of the 12th page, FIGS. 27, 28, 51 and 52)
However, such a liquid crystal display device with a diffused reflected light distribution having a predetermined directivity is not intended to improve a quality of displaying by maximizing the utilization of the directivity in addition to effective use of light, which is achieved by adaptation for the above-described mode of use.